Upgrade available
by schak
Summary: You want a story where Ren and Kyoko get together fast and you can read pure fluff? That skips the long part before that and how it effects everybody else? Well that's not this story. Give it a try.
1. Chapter 1

Showbiz is a hard way to earn your money. You are in a constant competition with lots of people who would sell their souls to the devil to get one real chance. Everybody tries to show that they are special, that they are something new and exciting. You have to fight and better yourself all the time. And hell you really don't want to do this alone. That is why you search for an agency to help you, with pretty much everything. Negotiating the contract for a project, looking for promising castings, and making sure you won't be taken advantage of.

Good agencies protect you while you make your way, great agencies show you how you can develop.

LME is one of the biggest and the best. If you get into LME you have already taken a big step towards your dream. They are very good at seeing potential and helping you shine. LME is an agency with an open hierarchy where even the president takes personal interest in the development of his talents, whether it is the big star that already made it or the fresh newbie who is still at the beginning. With this mindset...

The tv turned black.

"Um... President? The video hasn't ended yet."

"Boring."

"What?"

"It's boring as hell. We are one of the biggest entertainment agencies in Japan, what am I saying, in /Asia/ and powerful enough that even Hollywood would think twice before they messed with us. We have some of the most creative people in this county. And this is the best we can come up with? I won't allow that on my homepage."

You see, the eccentric president is not only a man who enjoys strange costumes, medling with his talents' love lives, and batshit crazy ideas like the LoveMe section. He is also a man who build an entertainment empire out of nothing.

"Where are the colours, the music, the fun, the dancing, the fire? Where is the LOVE?"

Well, he still is a guy, around 50 years old, who loves to play dating Sims games and loves it even more to play it with real people. BUT he can only do that because he worked very hard in the past and still overlooks everything and steps in if he sees the necessity for it. And he has a hell of an instinct for this business. That and he is very good at taking on employees who are good at their job and loyal to LME.

But his quite special ways are a bit strange and sometimes overwhelming to people not used to it, like Hirotaka Honda, a young man 26 years old, fresh from the art and design university in Kyoto. Still with the giddy feeling in the stomach of getting this great job so soon, he had worked on the promoting video, with his head filled with theories about management, marketing and advertisement. The problem here is just that sometimes, knowledge stands in the way of creativity. A bit like actually knowing how physics works kills the joy of watching a good action movie with the nagging voice in the back of your head saying, this would never work in real life. And now imagine how the guy who has to think up these action scenes has to feel. He has to know the physics and then has to purposely ignore them. And then think up a way of breaking it down to something that actually works and at last find a way to fool the viewers into seeing something that isn't there.

This describes Hirotaka's dilemma in a way. He still has to learn how to use his knowledge as a powerful tool and ignore it at the same time. He has heard something like this from his new co-workers. But he still hasn't the slightest idea what it means. He wondered what exactly everybody is going to expect from him, while he watched his tall boss giving a quite heated speech about love, while being in an original samurai costume throwing heart shaped confetti.

/Where did that even come from?/, he silently wondered.

"Of course. We will redo it right now." His co-worker and mentor next to him replied, effectively stopping the president from making them listen further for an hour or more to him. They backed out of the room very fast and both took a relieved breath once they were back in the elevator.

"Is he always like this?"

"I fear the answer to that is: most the time. Takarada-sama is very eccentric and loves to be dramatic."

"Is it bad that we have to redo everything?"

"Don't worry about it, Honda-kun. Nobody ever managed to meet his expectations the first time. I knew, we would have to redo it. But I thought, it would be good for you to get this meeting past you as soon as possible. Sorry."

He looked at his mentor, a middle-aged, short man with a soft belly and salt and pepper hair. The man looked truly sorry for putting him through this. And he started to see, why his mentor would think this way.

"That's fine, I think."

Together they left the elevator, both lost in their own thoughts.

What's the point of this, you may ask. And is this new character important to the story? He is from Kyoto, does that mean he knows Kyoko and is a long forgotten friend and possible love interest?

The answer to these interesting questions are so unspectacular, that they are given right here.

No, he is no love interest for Kyoko, nor did they ever meet before, it's a big city. But he met Sho one time, when Sho with 13 years old and played at an open stage event in a bar. A bar in which Hirotaka met with some friends. Not that he can tell you, because at that time he was quite drunk and tried to pick a girl up with some truly ridiculous pick-up lines. Well it's a small city.

But is he important?

No. He might be later used to show events in the story from an unrelated point of view.

So what's the point of all this and this new character if he is unimportant?

There is none apart from the fact that the author realised that her story opening sounded like a badly made promoting video.

Now that you lost some minutes that you will never get back, let's start with the real story.

A floor lower, Takarada's three unwilling messengers of love got into the elevator and animatedly discussed today's workload and Sawara's message to come to his office.

"Why do you think Sawara-san wants to see all of us?" Kyoko looked at the other two in a way, as if she hoped that they have some deeper insight into her department head's mind, "I mean his message didn't have any hints in it."

The others, unsurprisingly, didn't have any hidden knowledge and messages like this ones were highly suspicious. "Hopefully it's not a stupid LoveMe mission again." Kanae announced and added some more mumbling about stupid presidents, loud children and other stuff.

"Then at least it's with Sawara-san and not Takarada-sama. He is more reasonable and the really crazy stuff the president would want to give out himself, right?"

To Chiori, Kanae and Kyoko looked somewhat relieved about this lack of self-engagement on the President's part.

"Oh yeah. Let's be thankful for the small miracles in life."

"Hmm you are probably right, Moko-san."

Once they arrived at their destination, they carefully opened the door, after they took a moment in front of it to take a deep breath and to give and seek for moral support from the others. Kanae and Chiori let Kyoko take the lead for two main reasons. One is that Sawara was most afraid of her and because of that was a bit more cautious to throw extremely strange stuff their way, and two, paradoxically he was most fond of her as well and would be more likely to take pity on her than on the other two.

By the way the not-main reason for her going in first is that this is LME and you never know what exactly awaits you on the other side of that door or any door at all, when you are in the LoveMe section, so it never hurts to have a living shield that you can feed to the wolves while running away. Please don't think badly about those two, they would feel guilty about it, just not enough to not do it again. The reason why Kyoko let them do that is she has too big a heart and couldn't refuse her friends anything. The other thing is that she, irrelevant to the fact the she is the longest in the ... (Please dear reader insert a fitting word of your choice here) LoveMe section, still desperately held onto her optimistic view on life.

But even she couldn't completely banish the uncomfortable feeling in her guts, while she spoke to her department head. "You wanted to see us, Sawara-san?"

"Ah yes. Come in, come in."

He didn't look uncomfortable. Which is generally taken as a good sign by the girls, because they are unpleasant, mostly to him as the nearest person, when given unpleasant work, which in consideration of the Pavlovian reflex makes him start to feel uncomfortable when faced with the task of giving them unpleasant tasks.

He actually looked quite relaxed and kind of happy. Normally a good indicator that he believed something good for their careers was heading their way. They may not let their guard down easily, but they still relaxed slightly.

Kanae couldn't keep the hostile tone out of her voice, as she asked, "Do you have new offers for us?"

"I fear not. But I managed to secure some training spots for you guys. It is always good to list a variation of skills on your applications. It shows you are able to adapt to new skills and boost your chances with specialized roles a lot."

Looking from Sawara's uneasy smile to each other, they decide it's not so bad. They could give it a chance and hear the man out.

"What kind of training are we talking about?"

"Oh I have three different kinds here. You can decide for yourselves who does which."

He took out a couple of paper and started to read them to the girls. The idea to do this came to him, when he had done something similar for one of his other talents. One who hadn't been in LME for nearly as long as them. With a start this made him realize, that he had neglected his manager job towards Kyoko and ones the president noticed him doing it, he thought that it was a wonderful and lovely gesture, that he should do this for the other two members, too, so they don't feel left out.

"First we have a traditional training. You will learn how to wear a kimono correctly, to prepare a tea ceremony, how to walk and talk, flower arranging and some historical lessons." Each took one of the offered papers and glanced at it, or in the case of Kanae, memorized it.

"Next we have motorcycle lessons. The people you will learn from are stuntmen. So you will learn how to drive for the camera and maybe even some easy stunts. Furthermore they have a little repair shop and will teach you..." he made a short pause here and looked a bit unsure, "how to use some tools." The second paper they got had a lot less written on it and the wording showed that Sawara didn't write these papers, but asked those who offered the training to write a summary.

The top of the paper said Motorcycle Lessons and below it under the point Main Skills they wrote: learning how to drive a motorcycle. The next point should have given information about how those skills will be taught and the answer simply said: let them drive a motorcycle. There was an unwritten "dude" obviously implied. By Side Skills they listed: how to use tools, so you won't look stupid when you have to do it for the camera. So all together not the most informant piece of paper.

"Well last but not least voice training and musical education." This paper was once again very detailed about what will be taught and how. "You will learn how to sing different styles of music, be it modern pop, hip-hop or classic. You will learn how to read notes and how to recognize them when you hear them. If you are interested you can learn how to play an instrument too." The paper held a list with lots of different instruments to choose from. "There is one spot for each option. I will let you girls choose what you want to do."

/Please God, don't let them fight about this. I wouldn't be able to break up a catfight between them!/ This fear didn't exactly result from dealing with specifically these three girls, but from many years in an industry that put everyone in competition with everybody else. This results in an atmosphere of back stabbing and mistrust.

"Can we discuss this for a moment?"

"Sure, take your time. How about you take this to your LoveMe room and give me an answer at, let's say 3 o'clock. All of the options will take a lot of time to learn and we will expect a lot of engaged learning from you."

After they left his office Sawara sank into his chair with a relieved sigh. Dealing with those three always felt a bit like a lottery to him. They often reacted in ways that are unpredictable and strange. Not that he can really hold this against them. If he was a plaything to all of the president's whims, he probably would have trust issues too.

* * *

><p>A.N.<p>

First things first. I have no rights on Skip Beat or any non original characters. I don't make any profit with this and only to it to improve my writing skills and my English.

Secondly, Matelia-legwll has agreed to be my beta reader. And thus this chapter has been edited by her now.

Last thing, what do you guys think about it so far? Leave a review and help me to improve. Thank you.


	2. Chapter 2

If you have to make an important decision, take a second to look at the environment where you have to make it.

Are you alone in the decision-making process or are there other people in it too?

What personal relationship do you have to the other ones?

What are their aims? Are you on the same side? Do you even need different sides?

What are the strengths of the different people? Who is more of the creative free mind? Who keeps an eye on it if it is makeable? Who is the mediator?

At what point of the decision-making are you? Are the choices clear or are you still in a creative process?

How comfortable are you and the others in your direct surrounding?

What time of the day is it?

All this and more are important factors to consider when you have to make a decision. Once you know all this you can try to change the environment to secure that the odds are in your favor. Your aim is, that there shouldn't be a decision today? Leave them hungry. It makes people aggressive and less likely to make a compromise.

If you want a decision, give them food. If you want them creative, give them some light snacks, nothing too heavy. You don't think with a full stomach.

And there are one hundred more things that are notable, but it would take too long to mention all of them here.

Why do you read this?

Well, first so that you, dear readers, can have this comfy feeling of not having waste your time procrastinating. No you've learned some kind of useful stuff, so no reason to feel guilty. You can thank me later. Apart from that it should show that making a decision is not an easy task.

Oh, and it shows, if you have the opportunity, always choose flipping a coin or drawing sticks. It's much simpler and half the time it leads to as good results as all the other stuff.

One look at the LoveMe lounge makes one thing painfully obvious. Whoever was in charge of designing the lounge didn't actually seem to have thought about any of those previous advises. To be precise this room didn't seem as there had been any thinking involved at all. It has been a recently new idea from the president, that LME needs a love headquarters. This room is the (in)glorious result.

The room was big and divided in three areas. The right side was a small area separated with a curtain from the rest. Behind it were the bright pink lockers and the changing area had a small bathroom. There were 8 lockers by the way and this single fact creeped the hell out of the LoveMe girls and gave nightmares to Sawara, because they suspect, that this represents Lori Takaras developing plans for the LoveMe section. (And when it says nightmares, that's completely true. There have been nights when Sawara woke up in a cold sweat and started mumbling something along the lines: 'There are eight. Eight...' This happens often enough, that Mrs. Sawara by now takes care of avoiding the number eight in their daily life.) Each locker had a heart-shaped nameplate. Nobody dares to look at the five empty ones. Artists are naturally superstitious and they really don't want to provoke bad luck. The curtain is the only black thing in this room, due to the fact that it was installed by the girls and sponsored by Sawara two days after the opening. The idea that a sign, that can be switched between 'come in and let us help you 3' and 'just a short moment and we will help you' is the only thing to prevent somebody from walking in on them changing, sounds like a catastrophe waiting to happen or worst a matchmaking plan.

Directly opposite of the door were three desks. They were white with a big pink heart with the LoveMe logo on them. Every single piece of office equipment was in the same screaming LoveMe pink as the uniforms. Where those were found will hopefully remain a mystery to humanity forever and ever.

The last part of the room was a living space with a pink plush sofa and armchairs with plush hearts as cushions. In the middle stood a pink heart-shaped coffee table. All this furniture was the reason it took so long to set this room up. They were all special ordered and made, because no-one had this kind of...of abnormal things in stock, anywhere in the world. This was the part of the room the LoveMe troop stubbornly tried to make comfortable, which mostly involved throwing white blankets (they were forbidden to use black again) over everything. And putting iconic movie posters on the walls to cover up the rosé wall paint that had 'I love you' written in every language known to mankind on it and some they suspect that he made up.

All in all the room was, with its penetrate single-mindedness, more fitting as a love hotel room (and before somebody mention the lack of a bed, there is enough space on desks, sofas and against walls, be creative) than a workplace. But the specie of man can fast adapt to even the most hostile environment. By now they set a bowl with fruits on the table and keep some water bottles and different kinds of juice next to the sofa.

'Mo, if he wants us to decide on those training spots he shouldn't make us run around this building all day.'

The trio flopped down in their sitting area and stretched quit passionately. None of them looked the tiniest bit motivated to do much of anything, least of all make any important decisions.

'I don't think I can feel my arms anymore.', Chiori whined, while hanging over the armrest like an old sack of beans.

'Hmm.' Kyoko nodded in agreement and tried to rub her own neck.

In this moment the trio looked like death (and they felt like cheap takeout that was three days old and heated up again) and they didn't do much of anything apart of existing for the next ten minutes or so. Please notice, they are still actresses and should somebody open the door they would look presentable within half a second, well as presentable as you can, while wearing shocking, eye-cancer causing pink uniforms. But that's not the point.

'We should look at those papers.' Chiori's voice was muffled from speaking into the cushion of her armchair.

'Yes, we should.' Nobody was moving.

'I mean like, we should really do this, like now.' Still, no high body-function than the purely life-preserving ones were observable in this room.

They spend ten more minutes in this vegetative state, until Kyoko righted herself up with a loud and pathetic groan. 'You want something to drink, too?'

'Uh, yeah.' Was the long drawn answer she received.

Each armed with a glass of water they returned to the land of the living.

'Uff, we really have to do this now. Ok let's do this.' They took out the papers and slowly, slowly started reading them.

'Mo, give me something to eat. NO! Not the stupid banana, you bought them, you are going to eat them, I'm not going to get fat from them!' Kyoko giggled a bit at her best friend outburst and passed her an apple, then peeled the banana for herself.

'You want something, too?'

'I'll get it myself don't worry.' Chiori took some grapes and they all chewed silently while finally reading.

Kyoko only took a quick glance at the paper for the tea ceremony classes and put it away. She contrasted on the other two papers, well one of the papers still didn't offer any real information, but she at least tried. She unsurprisingly didn't find any more hidden info on that piece of paper.

'Are you guys done?', Kanae asked. She had finished after just one or two minutes and waited for her friends to get there.

'Yeah.'

' Yes.'

'Oh, but you didn't even looked at that offer, Kyoko-sama.' Koyko blushed a little bit, as she always does when Chiori called her Sama or Sempai.

'I already know the tea ceremony and all the other stuff they offer to teach in that class. So I'm not really interested in it.'

'You know all that? Where and when did you learned it?' Kyokos comment had peeked Kanaes interest. She was Kyokos best friend, why the hell didn't she know this? She should know about something like this, probably, maybe, she wasn't completely sure. This whole best friend thing and knowing everything about each other was confusing sometimes. She was sure she should know the important stuff, was something like this important?

'Oh, I started learning this when I was very young, maybe four or five and for a couple of years.' Kyoko replied uneasily. She didn't want to talk about how that idiot's family took her in and taught her how to be his bride.

'Oh really, I wouldn't have thought you knew something like this. Does Sawara-san know this? He didn't comment on it earlier.' Chiori replied cheerfully.

/It was long ago. It's probably not that important./

'Hmm. I'm not sure. I don't think we ever talked about it. Maybe I should do that sometime. Or maybe Yashiro-san or Tsuruga-san already told him.' Kyoko tipped against her chin when she answered.

'Why does Tsuruga knows about this?' /Before me? That's not ok! I definitely should know this, if he knows it. I'm her best friend, he shouldn't know more about her than me, mo!/

'Oh, it was on one of my first LoveMe jobs, before you guys were here. I was on one of his sets and there was a tea ceremony and yeah... it came up.'

Kanae only got more pissed when being reminded, that he technically knew Kyoko longer than she has. She knew it was irrational to feel this kind of rivalry towards him, but she couldn't help it. And snowball chance in hell, that she will lose to him.

'Hmpf, enough of that. So you don't want or need it. So one of us', she pointed to Chiori and herself,'is going to do it. We just have to figure out who. Let's start with that.'

'Good idea, Kanae-san. Do you really want it? Because I don't really care.'

'Me neither. Do you think it will benefit you in the future? For what kind of roles do you need this training?'

All three shouted out the first things that came to their mind.

'In historical dramas and movies.'

'Rich, traditional Ojou-sama from an old family.'

'Family drama.'

'Culture crash dramas.'

'Horror movies.' This earned Chiori a strange look from the other two.

'Ok, ok. So who of us is more likely to get one of those roles? I mean, whose type does it suits more?'

'Hmm, Chiori-san is the sweet and cute type of girl and you, Moko-chan, are a traditional Japanese beauty. I could see both of you in some of the roles.'

'Not helpful. But who did it fit more?'

'Hey, but fitting best into the role doesn't mean that one of us should get it. When fitting a role very well, the director maybe would give us time and instruction to learn it.'

'But our types aren't so uncommon in this industry. I mean, being beautiful or cute is a prerequisite to become an actress.'

We will cut this discussion a bit short, because it kept going for twenty more minutes. They listed everything that could be important in this and looked at all the points from different kinds of angles. It was a very reasonable and friendly discussion in a well-known environment. And it was completely and totally unproductive. It kept going until:

'Mo! Shut up, both of you. We are running in circles here.' Kanae had jumped up from the sofa, when she shouted at her surprised friends. With some hectic she searched her pockets, until she held something directly in front of Chiori, whose eyes crossed when she tried to look at it.

'Heads or tails?'

'Um, heads?'

The raven-haired beauty flipped the coin powerful enough that it nearly touched the ceiling, caught it skillfully and smashed it down on the table for all to see.

It was tails.

'Ok, I will do this one and you decide on the other two.' She grabbed her paper and fell back into the sofa. Said other two still looked a bit shaken from the forceful display of their fellow LoveMe worker.

' Oookay... we have here the whole voice and music training and those motorcycle and stunt classes. What do you prefer, Kyoko-sama?'

Kyoko observed how for a short moment an uneasy look crossed her friend's face and how her hand unconsciously went to her neck, when she talked about the stunt part, even when she tried to sound cheerfully.

'Ahm, I think, the stunt classes seem interesting. Music never really interested me. If that's ok with you, of course.' You see, there was really no choice, at least not for Kyoko.

'Yeah, I thought the karaoke parts in Box-R were actual a lot of fun.' the petite girl answered relieved.

'We still have half an hour before we have to go to Sawara-san.'

They didn't say anything else, but silently agreed, half an hour sitting around and relaxing would be heaven for their abused arms and shoulders.

A.N.

Thank you XxLovelyStoryxX for being my betareader. You are the best.


End file.
